Husband’s ‘help’ sounds a lot like gaslighting

Dear Carolyn: My husband recently said he thinks I’m annoying and arrogant. For example, when I meet someone new or we are out with his friends, I try to connect by sharing information on the subject matter we’re discussing. My husband interprets that as trying to show off how smart I am. I told him that’s not my intention, but he insists it is. What I thought was regular back-and-forth, he says the other person finds annoying and would never tell me that.

He went on to say my storytelling is erratic and leaves out details, and he knows our friends find me annoying because of it.

But when I was trying to tell him something about work later on, he called this an example of me leaving out context and details . . . except I had told him that stuff. I don’t think he was listening.